The future of diesel. What should I do?

Fancy injectors on diesel engines cost a grand a pop,so any wagon a few years old aint worth fixing.
 
It would be easier to upgrade the filters on diesels.Make it part of the mot.You can upgrade the filter,but guess what you can only use the government approved dealers and its about £2000. Meanwhile the cost of diesel outstrips petrol at the pumps.Older diesels have the option of bio fuel,recycled cooking oil red diesel if you can get it.(no it does not stain the engine). Retro fitting of an electric motor is a possibility for the future,but expensive for now.Old classics like e type Jags have been changed over to electric Prince Harry drove one after his wedding.
 
Edinburgh Council could quite easily ban vehicles from the city centre but they have chosen for years not to do so - I worked in the Police in the city centre back in 87 - 89 and patrolling Princes Street during the day resulted in streaming eyes and a smelly uniform. They allowed the constant nose to tail old bangers of buses to belch out fumes and 2.5 litre bangers of taxis to patrol 24/7 looking for fares. Like London, Scotland see the answer as charging motorists to use centres - why not just ban them? Everyone, even the poorest and most disadvantaged (SNPs pet subject) has a phone - call up a taxi from a static point instead of them still patrolling looking for fares. The London mayor has posters from his office displayed telling motorists in old diesels that they are affecting children's lives so is his answer to ban them - no - he wants another £12 on top of the current 'congestion' charge, so like Scotland are they serious or just looking for more cash from motorists. No one can argue about cause and affect, but as usual everything is more geared to income. (Edinburgh centre has been allowed over the years to become rather seedy and the once proud Princes Street is but a shadow of its former self so not sure why it still attracts so many pedestrians/tourists) Bob
 
I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and noted that new diesel car sales are down significantly so far this year to only 29% of the market, compared to holding 55% of the market back in 2012.
What was very interesting was that electric car sales so far this year have only reached 1% market share.

I am reliably informed by a friend who is a senior technical development bod at Jaguar - Land Rover that the UK version of the new and eagerly expected Defender replacement will only be offered with an all electric drivetrain!
 
bobj808 said:
According to Auto Express building one giant lithium battery for an electric vehicle has the same dirty output as running a diesel car for 12 years!
Click to expand...
But where? They aren’t bothered about polluting third world countries. Most of the eco friendly tripe the government comes up with is flawed. I tend to agree with you that they just want the money with the LEZ thing
 
I think we all realise something has to be done - the pimple on the globe that is Scotland wants to be world leaders - admirable but to be a leader would suggest you need followers. China produces 1/4 of all pollution, closely followed by India and the USA. Now if we could get them to come on board with our UK claims, then we would be achieving something. Then Attenborough upsets us with the demise of the rainforests which trap CO2. What does the rich Old World do? Buys the flaming stuff. Why can't the rich countries give a portion of their GDP to educate and finance farmers to reuse their cleared land. I could go on. Bob
 
trevskoda said:
Fancy injectors on diesel engines cost a grand a pop,so any wagon a few years old aint worth fixing.
Click to expand...
Yeah, five Bosch injectors for my VW 2.5tdi T4 comes in at £750 fitted, luckily they are working fine so far. , it has passed the MOT with no problems since 2010.
Millie Master said:
Don't forget Russia
Click to expand...

The British government is going to use this pollution argument to hammer us when we as a country produce much less pollution than all those countries mentioned , China, India, USA, Russia. Pollution in large UK cities can be improved but those of us that live in small towns and rural areas are going to be hammered too.
 
I must say that we do try and do the "green" thing. To make up for the fact we didn't have it in our day. You know, when we used to have paper carrier bags, drinking straws and the like. When all of our bottles were glass and were used over and over again. Kids nappies were washed and re-used... But you get the picture.

But what I rarely see mentioned is that we are part of a global system. Just because we clean up the air over the UK now, it will be gone in an instant and replaced by air and pollution from the USA, China, Russia et-al. Alone as one small group of islands, our draconian proposals will do nothing, except penalise the citizens of the UK for no gain.

Yes there can be localised differences in our towns and cities for a short while, but remember that air that travels the globe? Yep! It will bring in pollution from wherever it is produced. And WE are the problem. We want everything for nothing so we get goods made in cheap, far flung places who pollute! But I refuse to worry about it. I have an old Talbot 2.5 diesel. It is not green and makes no pretence at being clean. I wish I could clean it up, but until taxes become punitive or fuel is no longer available, I will keep driving my classic!
 
Rumour said:
I must say that we do try and do the "green" thing. To make up for the fact we didn't have it in our day. You know, when we used to have paper carrier bags, drinking straws and the like. When all of our bottles were glass and were used over and over again. Kids nappies were washed and re-used... But you get the picture.

But what I rarely see mentioned is that we are part of a global system. Just because we clean up the air over the UK now, it will be gone in an instant and replaced by air and pollution from the USA, China, Russia et-al. Alone as one small group of islands, our draconian proposals will do nothing, except penalise the citizens of the UK for no gain.

Yes there can be localised differences in our towns and cities for a short while, but remember that air that travels the globe? Yep! It will bring in pollution from wherever it is produced. And WE are the problem. We want everything for nothing so we get goods made in cheap, far flung places who pollute! But I refuse to worry about it. I have an old Talbot 2.5 diesel. It is not green and makes no pretence at being clean. I wish I could clean it up, but until taxes become punitive or fuel is no longer available, I will keep driving my classic!
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you say, except washing towelling nappies, we tried that many years ago to be "green" and we lasted two weeks. To reduce throw away nappies we just started feeding the baby less . o_O;)
There needs to be a global agreement because ripping off only UK motorists will make little to no difference.
 
Pedalman said:
I agree with everything you say, except washing towelling nappies, we tried that many years ago to be "green" and we lasted two weeks.
Click to expand...

I am sorry to say that as far as I am concerned disposable nappies ought to be banned with immediate effect or at least taxed into oblivion!
 
Millie Master said:
I am sorry to say that as far as I am concerned disposable nappies ought to be banned with immediate effect or at least taxed into oblivion!
Click to expand...
There is now a process being rolled out to recycle disposable nappies, once washed the materials are all reusable and there will be an industry created with real employment. I think that is much better than banning disposable nappies and possibly putting people out of work.
It also removes the use of the chemicals used to sterilise towel nappies that ends up down the sewer system. Good for the environment in all areas.
 
Pedalman said:
There is now a process being rolled out to recycle disposable nappies.
Click to expand...
Yes I watched a programme about the process..................... but in doing such a thing, the manufacturing of the machinery required as well as the running of the machinery will all take an enormous amount of energy all of which wouldn't be required if parents in the supposedly developed World of ours, collectively swallowed the I must do better pill of life!

Because in truth, the young kids of today have a very grim future unless there are some significant changes to the way we all live our lives.
 
Good luck in persuading people to dump ( pun intended ) disposable nappies. I think the recycling machines are better than landfill.

Apologies for getting philosophical but ..........It ain't just nappies or diesel engines we need to worry about.

The factories needed to build hundreds of millions more wind turbines and millions of square miles of solar cells to generate the electricity will also cause pollution. We will need to charge three ? four? five? six? billion electric car batteries, phones and tables, in addition to running our homes and internet. There is no such thing as "free energy" in this universe ( even solar and wind power is not pollution free ) In this universe there is an equivalence of energy and what we take out has to be generated by something, , the universal laws of thermodynamics also apply and they are brutally strict.

Worldwide population control is a way of controlling the spiralling demand for energy and I predict that will be the way the world's governments will try to control demand in the future when taxing fossil fuel use fails.....because none of us want to give up or go without our luxuries do we ?

We humans ARE the problem, but unless we go back to pre industrial revolution then sadly, because of our greed and demands for energy, the destruction of our planet is inevitable. We humans are part of earths evolution and will probably be responsible for our own demise.

Planet earth itself does not need us humans, and when we humans eventually go extinct planet earth will slowly recover and cleanse itself .
Prof Richard Dawkins has stated that 99.9% of all animal life that ever existed on earth is now extinct.

The evolution process is ongoing but does anyone want to live without central heating, cars, mobile phones, tablets, television, flying around the world, Satellite Navigation, satellite TV, Netflix, spotify, computer games, voice activated household devices ?
ALEXA, how do we save the world ?
Answer .......sorry no matches found for your search .
 
Pedalman said:
We are already paying about 8p / 10p more per litre for diesel for something that take less refining, decades ago diesel was vastly cheaper than petrol for this one reason. We are being ripped off on diesel prices.
Click to expand...
It was Gordon Brown and that delightful man Tony Blair who decided to make oil burners more expensive to run, simply because they were getting less fuel tax from diesel.
 
LANDS43 said:
It was Gordon Brown and that delightful man Tony Blair who decided to make oil burners more expensive to run, simply because they were getting less fuel tax from diesel.
Click to expand...

Two people, who if I had anything to do with it, would have ended up in the Tower of London and the keys thrown away!
 
Last edited:
Pedalman said:
I agree with everything you say, except washing towelling nappies, we tried that many years ago to be "green" and we lasted two weeks. To reduce throw away nappies we just started feeding the baby less . o_O;)
There needs to be a global agreement because ripping off only UK motorists will make little to no difference.
Click to expand...
Washing old naps wastes energy and water which must be pumped to our homes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top